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As COVID cases rise in Karnataka with Bengaluru peaking at over 20,000 on 26 April, scenes of anguish are being witnessed at hospitals across the state. There are no more hospital beds available, and COVID patients are lying on pavements gasping for breath and crying for help.
Bidar Institute of Medical Sciences at Bidar, Karnataka, had patients overflowing as they lay outside, lining the sidewalk.
In Bengaluru, a COVID victim died on the road, while another died in the car in Kalburgi. Reason, no availability of beds.
The plight of a non-COVID patient seems equally worse. A six-year-old, Prajwal died at Kalaburagi because he was not given treatment after meeting with an accident.
“We are from Ballari. We came to Kalaburagi to visit the Sharanabasaveshwar temple. As we were heading back, we stopped to take a break. The child was standing near the car. An Innova car hit him and sped away. The time was around 2 am. We went to Sunrise Hospital. They said there was no ventilator. We went to Basaveshwara Hospital. There was no ventilator. The ambulance broke down. We arranged another ambulance. We went to Vatsalya Hospital. We got the same answer,” said 6-year-old Prajwal’s relative.
Day by day, health infrastructure in Karnataka seems to be collapsing under pressure from COVID-19 caseload. Enter ESI Hospital in Bengaluru, patients are seen seated on the hospital floor receiving IV treatment.
A mother was spotted outside KIMS Hospital in the city. She was waiting for six long hours with her ailing daughter in the ambulance before meeting a doctor.
Jagannath was a cab driver in Chikmaglur. He set out to Bengaluru, post the first wave of COVID, in search of a job, so he could take better care of his wife and fund his daughter’s education. He died for lack of oxygen.
According to COVID response team in Bengaluru, every volunteer receives at least 1,000 calls a day with pleas for hospital beds, another 200 calls demanding remdesivir injections. Four to five hospitals in the city have sent back patients from the ICU, citing lack of oxygen supply. Is the Karnataka government unmindful?
Former health minister Sriramulu and forest minister Anand Singh were recently seen violating government guidelines by campaigning for their Municipality candidate in Ballari district.
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